At Seville, the first Spanish settlement remains little more than a legend despite sporadic archaeological investigations. Sevilla La Nueva was founded in 1509 on orders from Diego Columbus, Governor of the Indies who chose the site where his father Christopher had been marooned with two unseaworthy ships for one year. The grand city planned never materialized and was abandoned 25 years later when the capital removed to St Jago de la Vega (now Spanish Town). Seville is known to have had a cathedral, palace, and sugar factory. Relics of these were unearthed in the 1950s by the late Charles Cotter, an amateur but expert archaeologist and include exquisitely carved stones from the Church of Peter Martyr of Anghiera - an absentee abbot who wrote a book about the New World but never set foot in Jamaica. Attempts to uncover the remains of Columbus' stranded vessels using the most advanced sonic techniques have proved fruitless. Apart from signs erected by the Jamaica National Heritage Trust, there is very little to see other than fragments of ancient stone masonry but the eerie stillness of the swampy foreshore does encourage reflections on forgotten dreams and the passage of time. At Seville great house, L off the main road a UNESCO plaque commemorates the 500^th year since Columbus arrived in the New World. The anniversary was ignored in the island since most Jamaicans, if they thought about it at all, seemed to favour the view that Columbus was the first of the colonial exploiters. The Jamaica National Heritage Trust and local Georgian society have plans to refurbish the great house as a mini-museum.

At Priory the huge anchor R of the road beside the brick ruins of the oldest church on the northcoast marks the entrance to Columbus Cottages and Hofstra Marine laboratory. American students come here to take practical courses in marine biology. Also R is Jamel Continental, a comfortable small hotel with friendly staff.

Turn L at Priory and follow the signs to Sleepy Hollow, a small eco-tourist oasis in the hills offering campsites, refreshments and a fine view. It is owned by Con and Patsy Pink.

Back on the highway, at Richmond, Chukka Cove is a complete equestrian centre offering lessons (beginner's, polo, jumping),trail rides (from one hour to 3 days) and even the opportunity to ride horses in the ocean. Owned and operated by Danny Melville, current chairman of the Jamaica Racing Commission, Chukka Cove is the mecca of the island's 'horsey' crowd and frequently the venue for shows and international polo tournaments including the Fossil Open in which the aggregate age of each team must exceed 200 years. Jamaica Carnival kicks off here every Easter Monday with Byron Lee and his Dragonaires.

Past the bridge over Little River a sign L points the way to Lillyfield (a short but strenuous drive into the hills). Lillyfield is a small guest house in a restored great house on a working plantation that includes 15 acres of high mountain coffee. Their small Coffee museum includes the Women's Petition against Coffee, "Representing to Publick Consideration the Grand Inconveniences accruing to their Sex from the Excefsive Ufe of the Drying, Enfeebling Liquor."

Salem has a fishing beach and the privately operated Paradise Beach with changing rooms, and snack bar. Club Caribbean, a successful cottage hotel had the first nude beach on the island - now there are several, all private and described as 'swimsuits optional'. Next door Sunflower Villas and Caribbean Village offer more accommodation options. Opposite, the cluster of small shops, bars and restaurants continues to spread. Almost anything is available here including Karate Lessons. Look out for the studio of Christopher Gonzales, the sculptor whose mystical concept of Bob Marley can be seen at the National Gallery in Kingston.

Runaway Bay was the first total resort development in Jamaica. During the 1960s Cardiff Hall a cattle and coconut estate - was transformed into two golf courses, residential and commercial lots and a luxury beach front hotel. The hotel now incarnated as Jamaica-Jamaica is a member of the all-inclusive Super Clubs chain. Numerous villas on the hills and around the golf course can be rented, some have rights to a private residents beach adjacent to Jamaica Jamaica. The Runaway Bay H.E.A.R.T. Academy and Club overlooking the golf course combines a small hotel with a hotel training school. The Super Clubs Golf Club with an 18 hole championship course and driving range - welcomes visitors. The Franklyn D. Resort is a family all-inclusive apartment hotel. Other small hotels hugging the coast include Eaton Hall, and Ambiance.

For years, the Pear Tree River beach at a deep bend in the road provided a scenic drive, relaxed safe swimming and a number of informal snackbars and craft shops the perfect eco-tourist attraction. Now another large all inclusive tourism development (dubbed doomvelopment by local fishermen) threatens to deny public access to the beach and to degrade the almost pristine wetland behind it. As we go to press, community groups and environmentalists continue to protest.

At Green Grotto you can tour a limestone cave complete with stalactites and stalagmites and a tiny underground lake. The Pirates Hideaway nightclub inside the cave is frequently the venue for entertainments that would put even the roistering buccaneers to shame. You can have "Fishing Fun" in the crystal clear water of the small lake adjacent to the cave. A small entrance fee covers bait and tackle. You can buy the fish your catch (or throw them back) and eat them fried, jerked or baked right there. Bammies and cool drinks are also available. This lake is fed by an underground water system which surfaces again as the much larger but still undeveloped Kaiser lake. Subterranean channels connect these lakes to the sea and the water level rises and falls with the tides. Opposite the Fishing Fun entrance and R of the main road, El Africano is handy for good jerk pork and cool beer.

As you enter Discovery Bay, meet 'roots'Jamaica at its most conscious at "Kocks & Cold Drinks", an insignificant sign L of the road by a football field and ask Everton Bell (otherwise known as Kocks) about the Marcus y Bob Community League and the St. Ann Environment Protection Association.

Discovery Bay, formerly dependent on Kaiser Jamaica is now in the throes of tourism expansion. Opposite the small Post Office, the showroom of Discovery Bay Designs has choice craft items and souvenirs. Local magnates with beach villas along the Fortlands 'Millionaires Row' include Butch Stewart of Sandals fame, and Tony Hart of Good Hope and the McConnells of United Estates. Some of these luxury villas can be rented.

Kaiser Jamaica, a major employer, overlooks the bay. A subsidiary of Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Co. of the U.S., Kaiser Bauxite Ltd. operated first on the south coast then moved to St. Ann in the 1960s. A railroad was built from the bauxite mines in the Dry Harbour mountains and a plant and port established and named Port Rhodes after a popular Kaiser executive 'Dusty Rhodes' - though there are times when Port Dusty seems more appropriate. In 1979 the Jamaican government acquired 51% of Kaiser Bauxite's mining assets and all their land thus creating a partnership called Kaiser Jamaica which is managed by the U.S. partner. Kaiser Jamaica's operation contracted during the aluminum slump of the mid 1980s and the disintegration of the Soviet union, its main customer, was another blow.

The expansive Puerto Seco beach is (unfortunately) no longer operated by Kaiser but they still oversee Columbus Park, an open-air mini-museum overlooking the bay. The road L opposite the port leading up to the plant provides an excellent view of the harbour. Kaiser's Sports Club which you pass R features Anansi in the playground - a climbing structure fashioned from scrap metal in the likeness of a Jamaica folk hero - Brer Anansi - the wily spider. A lesser God of African origin, Anansi crossed the ocean with the slaves. The Sports Club is the venue every August for the finals of the Push Cart Derby. Jamaican youths 'earn a bread' by transporting goods in their home-made carts. On the suggestion of Con Pink, a former Kaiser employee, the Public Relations department organized push-carting as a grassroots sport and sponsors the annual Derby a very popular event. Some carts have been clocked at 60 miles per hour in the downhill homestretch. Kaiser's modern Clinic serves its employees and the community.

Just beyond Columbus park turn R off the road to the U.W.I. Marine laboratory. This branch of the University of the West Indies is a research centre that attracts scientists from all over the world. Facilities include wet and dry labs, a photographic lab, a library and the only decompression chamber in the island.

Most historians now agree that Discovery Bay was not the place where Columbus first set foot on Jamaican soil. He sailed into the harbour in search of fresh water and because he found none named the place Puerto Seco (dry harbour) - a name that persists to this day. He describes in his log proceeding west to the next horseshoe-shaped harbour where he discovered a fine river which he named Rio Bueno. The Arawaks waiting on shore made threatening gestures but were quickly subdued by a few rounds of shot and a ferocious dog, whereupon Columbus landed and claimed the land for God and the Queen of Spain. (Rio Bueno lies 6 miles west of Discovery Bay at the other end of the Queen's Highway - a fine road which was opened in 1953 by HRH Queen Elizabeth II. See Tour No 12)

Places to stay in Discovery Bay include: Portside Villas a small hotel on the bay with a popular restaurant , Sea Shanty, on a deck over the water. The Discovery Bay Hotel, overlooking the bay has a few self-catering apartments.

At the Discovery Bay crossroads head uphill between the Texaco station and Police Station, through pastures and pimento groves to Browns Town. Minard estate R just below Browns Town belongs to the government. It has two fine great houses, both badly in need of restoration and a herd of Jamaica Brahmin cattle, a beef breed developed by selective breeding of imported Zebu strains.

Brown's Town was named after Hamilton Brown, Esq., a very disagreeable character who lived at Minard during the nineteenth century and kept a private army. He loathed black and coloured people and destroyed the Baptist chapel so that they would have nowhere to worship. The atrocities that he committed were so blatant that the Governor finally expelled him from the Militia (the local army reserve). Nevertheless, he remained a member in good standing of St. Mark's Anglican church (which he had built) and was buried in 1843 in the churchyard overlooking the Browns Town market. The town is a centre for the hundreds of small farmers in the Dry Harbour Mountains. There are two markets - one dating from the 1800s, the other supposedly temporary, has been in place for the last twenty years. Vendors spill over into the narrow streets and hang their wares on the church railings. There are three banks and a variety of stores including long established family businesses like Top Charley's and Bottom Charley's (founded by two brothers from Lebanon), and Loganís.

Brown's Town is also a centre for education: St Hilda's High School, an Anglican foundation now government aided, overlooks the main street. The girls wear lavender uniforms. York Castle High School, a Methodist foundation is government aided and co-educational. The Browns Town Community College absorbs the sixth form from both schools and offers college-level courses. A former Principal of both York Castle and the Community College is Burchell Whiteman, local member of parliament and currently the hardworking Minister of Education and Culture. Browns Town is also well supplied with large churches including Baptist , Methodist, Anglican, Catholic and Seventh Day Adventist. Two interesting local groups are the Apostolic Ark, an indigenous evangelic group founded in 1880, and the Tabernacle, a breakaway from the Baptists, founded in 1876 by a flamboyant and radical missionary Dr. James Johnstone.

Browns Town's economic base is bauxite and farming including, when the heat is off, ganja farming. The hills around here are famous (or notorious) for producing high quality marijuana and plenty of it. This illicit crop explains some of the opulent mansions that you may observe in the town and remote locations in the countryside.

The road to Mandeville leads from Top Road through the hills. Many of the settlements here originated as Free Villages. After the emancipation of the slaves non-conformist churches and their congregations subscribed to buy land and provide the freed slaves with homesteads. Among the Free Villages in St. Ann are Sturge Town named for the Quaker Joseph Sturge, Clarksonville named for Baptist preacher John Clarke, and Wilberforce named for the liberal politician William Wilberforce who piloted the Emancipation Act through the British Parliament.

The winding road skims through rolling pastures, past woodlands and small cultivations. If you wish to see Kaiser's bauxite mining operation turn R at a junction called Trainline.

St. D'Acre is the home of Dr Neville Gallimore, JLP member of parliament, whose family has dominated local politics for generations. At the large Tabernacle church there is an obelisk, a memorial to the founder of the sect Dr James Johnstone, and the graves of several members of his family. Dr. Johnstone came to Jamaica from England as a Baptist preacher, quarreled with his superior and left to found the Jamaica Evangelistic Mission, otherwise called Tabernacle. Identifying one of his congregation's main needs as medical care he went to Canada to study medicine. On his return as a qualified M.D. members of the Tabernacle congregation met him outside Brown's Town, removed the horses from his buggy and themselves drew it through the town singing, "Jesus of Nazareth draweth nigh!" Three generations of preaching doctors followed him but now the medical side of the mission is defunct. The breach with the Baptists is long since healed but the Tabernacle with 22 churches throughout St. Ann and Trelawny retains its own identity.

Turn R at the next junction for Watt Town, the birthplace of Revivalism in Jamaica. The religious revival of the 1880s began here, initiated by foreign missionaries at a place called Happy News. On a steep hill at the edge of the village is Watt Town Revival Schoolroom, and rustic accommodation for pilgrims who come from all over the island and from overseas to recharge their spiritual energy. Most are members or leaders of Revivalist or charismatic sects. Spiritual school (service and prayer meetings) is held daily in the narrow stucco schoolroom which is furnished with wooden benches and faded banners. Visitors are welcome - once they are screened by the gatekeeper - and allowed to enter the 'ground'. Watt Town Leader is Henry Linton, an amiable farmer and powerful preacher. He is assisted by a number of Patriarchs, including the remarkable Mother Anna.

Alexandria, with a hospital and police station is the largest of the hill villages. Turn L here to Nine Miles, Bob Marley's birthplace and mausoleum. Notice the parish tanks at Alva and Calderwood, the only public supply of water in the hills. At Alva there is a long established Catholic Mission with a convent and school. Take the road R for Calderwood and Stepney to Nine Miles. The roads will not coincide exactly with your road map so ask directions. Nine Miles is a poor farming district - a stark contrast to the fame and opulence achieved by its favourite son, Reggae King Bob Marley who left a bitterly contested estate valued at US$35 million. On a steep and stony hill beside the little hut where Bob grew up, his family has built a shrine. In it Bob is entombed with his guitar. Space is reserved for the future use of his widow Rita, still very much alive and singing up a storm. The elegant shrine has stained glass windows. It is said that ganja is sometimes burned as incense on the altar inside. Memorial concerts are sometimes held here.

At Calderwood ask for directions to Murray Mountain and Brother Everald Brown. He is Jamaica's leading Intuitive artist and famous for his decorated musical instruments. Brother Brown, pastor of his own church is a mystic and deeply religious man. He seeks answers and inspiration on a remote hilltop emerging infrequently for the opening of art exhibitions at Harmony Hall.

The road from Nine Miles is rough: stark rocky hillside alternates with cool, ferny glades. At Alderton, Alcan's rolling cattle pastures are stocked with prime Jamaica Reds. (Possible detour: At Bonneville crossroads a road leads R to the ruins of Edinburgh Castle, a fortress built in the eighteenth century by Lewis Hutchinson, a psychopath with an unpleasant habit of inviting travelers to dinner and then robbing and murdering them. His hobby was discovered and he was tried and hanged in the Spanish Town square. From there the road continues through Concord and Pedro River (sometimes inundated by an ephemeral lake after heavy rains) and on to the once fruitful hills of Clarendon, childhood home of Jamaican poet Claude McKay.

Claremont is a rural market centre where fortunes wax and wane according to the price of agricultural produce (including marijuana). The town's most famous and respected citizen is Seymour 'Foggy' Mullings, land surveyor, piano player, long- time PNP politician and currently deputy Prime Minister of Jamaica. From here to Higgin Town the road winds smoothly through lush cattle farms with elegant great houses perched on hilltops - a vivid contrast to the small houses and hard scrabble cultivations that you observed in the hinterlands. A scenic drive with vistas of the seacoast takes you to Lime Hall, then down the hill to the parish capital.

Perched above the town, High Hope Estate has the largest collection of hybrid hibiscus in Caribbean. Up market Bed and Breakfast or an all-inclusive package available here. This is the starting point for the High Hope Countryside Bicycle Tour which ends with a tour of the High Hope gardens including an introduction to local medicinal plants and unusual fruits from their "Weird and Wonderful Table".

St. Anns Bay, which you enter via Gulley Road was once a busy port but shipping was discontinued long ago and the town is now eclipsed by Ocho Rios. It has steep narrow roads and several fine old buildings, notably the Courthouse, still the seat of local government. A statue of Christopher Columbus fronts the Catholic Church on the west of town. Nearby is the large Marcus Garvey Secondary School and beside it the St Ann's Bay Hospital. A statue of National Hero Marcus Garvey fronts the Library near the town centre. Philosopher Garvey, the first person to assert that 'Black is Beautiful' was born and schooled in the town before he went to Kingston to become a powerful orator and then on to the United States where he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association.

This is a long tour with many interesting possibilities, much of it over lonely and unpredictable roads. You may find that you need two or even three days to do it justice.